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What's a WebWorks app?

When you hear the words BlackBerry
WebWorks, think HTML5, JavaScript, and CSS.
Essentially, a BlackBerry
WebWorks application is a web application that runs
on a BlackBerry smartphone or BlackBerry PlayBook
tablet.

ease of access, even when users do not have an Internet connection available

Portability

Your BlackBerry
WebWorks app can be targeted to run on a variety of BlackBerry device
models or ported to a different OS, such as iOS or Android.

Developing your app with BlackBerry
WebWorks gives you the flexibility to target users of the latest BlackBerry devices and those who are using older models. Depending on the OS
you want to target, versions of the BlackBerry WebWorks
SDK are available for:

BlackBerry 10

BlackBerry PlayBook

BlackBerry 7 and
earlier

Because you create BlackBerry
WebWorks
apps using common web standards, you can reuse many of your existing web assets when you
port applications to or from another mobile platform, such as iOS
or Android.

You can take advantage of popular mobile web frameworks, such as Sencha Touch, PhoneGap powered by Cordova,
jQuery Mobile, and others. These frameworks provide a wide range of useful APIs
that can greatly simplify cross-browser web development. Many of these frameworks also
provide a BlackBerry theme to help you achieve the same look and feel as apps
written in C or C++.
See Community frameworks for more information.

Integration

Although standard HTML5 provides access to some BlackBerry device
features such as geolocation information and device orientation, by using BlackBerry
WebWorks APIs, you can access BlackBerry specific
information. For example, you can check the battery power level, find out whether the
device is holstered, or get brightness information from the light sensor.

BlackBerry
WebWorks APIs let you achieve deep integration with many of the core BlackBerry
applications. For example, you can integrate your app with BBM, Calendar, or
Contacts. You can invoke almost any other app from within your app.

You can invoke a single screen (called a card)
from another app directly within your app. This lets users interact with another
application to perform a specific task, such as picking a contact, composing an email,
or previewing an image, without leaving your
app.

You can use BlackBerry
WebWorks APIs to access BlackBerry services. Services available include:

App Integration:
Launch another application from within your app's UI.

Payment
Service: Leverage the business model that's right for your
application.

Ease of access

If your app is easy to access and is readily available,
users will likely use it more frequently. If you package your web app using BlackBerry
WebWorks, users can access your app with a single tap on their BlackBerry
device. In contrast, to access an app that lives on your website, users must open a browser,
then navigate to your website. Even if they have your website bookmarked, it's a multi-step
process.

An app packaged with BlackBerry
WebWorks can use server data if it needs to. Load times can be reduced because most
of the logic and presentation layer of the app are already on the device. If you can make your
application's resources local to the BlackBerry
device, users will be able to access your content even when they don't have an Internet
connection.

When you package your web app as a BlackBerry
WebWorks app, you can publish it to BlackBerry World,
where millions of subscribers can find it and buy it. No registration fees or submission fees
are required to become a BlackBerry World
vendor. To learn more about publishing your app, see BlackBerry World on the BlackBerry
Developer website.

Last modified: 2014-03-10

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